Overcoming Your Management Challenges Reducing Business Risk & Lowering Costs with integrated Hosted Exchange and Archival services

Transcription

1 Overcoming Your Management Challenges Reducing Business Risk & Lowering Costs with integrated Hosted Exchange and Archival services Cobweb Solutions Limited South Wing, Delme Place, Cams Hall Estate Fareham, Hampshire, PO16 8UX Date: October 2007 Cobweb Solutions Limited, 2007

2 Managed Archival Service Contents Introduction... 1 Today s Challenges...1 Who is this Whitepaper for?...1 Business Drivers for Archiving... 2 Board Directors...2 Human Resources...2 IT...2 Finance & Legal...2 Sales & Customer Service...3 Information Workers...3 Selecting an Archival Solution... 4 Compliance...4 Business Efficiency...4 Technical...4 Legal Protection...4 Benefits of Outsourced Integrated Business Services... 5 Scalability...5 Time to Deploy...5 Integration...5 Data Security...5 Business Continuity...5 Managed Archival...6 Journal Archiving...6 Storage Management...6 Archive Searching...6 Security & Reliability by Design...7 Seamless Retrieval...7 Archive Access Options...7 Purchasing Managed Archival... 9 Extended Mailbox...9 Journal Mailbox...9 Archive Storage...9 Related Services...9 About Cobweb Solutions Legal Notices This document is the Copyright 2007 of Cobweb Solutions Limited and is not to be copied, distributed, stored, translated, duplicated or transmitted without the express written permission of Cobweb Solutions Limited. All content is provided for informational purposes only. Cobweb is not liable for any errors or omissions in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All Trademarks are hereby acknowledged. Cobweb Solutions Limited, 2007

3 Introduction Overcoming Your Management Challenges has become the critical life-blood of modern business with employees stating that is now more vital than the telephone on their desk. The growth in usage and the reliance on it as a means for conducting business has produced several challenges for all businesses, small and large alike. In addition, legislation such as the Data Protection and Freedom of Information Acts, Basel II and the Companies Bill, is impacting how organisations must store and manage electronic data. Radicati recently estimated that over 100 billion messages are sent every day, with the average business user storing over 16MB of every working day. By 2010 the average business user is expected to be storing over 21MB of per day, representing a more than 30% increase per user. This growth in usage is just one aspect of the challenges facing IT Managers and businesses today. Today s Challenges These challenges can be broken down in to four key categories. This whitepaper analyses these four key areas and presents a solution which allows organisations to overcome them all by using a business class outsourced Archival service. Who is this Whitepaper for? This whitepaper is for both Technical and Business oriented Decision Makers who are involved in solving the challenges created by ever increasing usage within their organisation. Whilst the specific issues discussed are predominantly evident within Small & Medium size Businesses with less than 500 employees, many of the same challenges are also faced by much larger organisations. Cobweb Solutions Limited, 2007 Page 1

4 Managed Archival Service Business Drivers for Archiving The business issues posed by the challenges of ever increasing usage and greater regulation affect all parts of the business. The benefits of Archive solutions are discussed below in relation to the different functions found in most businesses. Board Directors For the Directors of a business the use of presents a series of legal and sound corporate governance challenges that must be met. A properly implemented Archive solution, which includes Journal Archiving and a fixed retention period, provides protection from these responsibilities: Legal responsibility to meet EU and UK Data Protection and other data retention legislation and industry specific regulations Duty to protect the organisation s reputation Obligation to properly investigate any claims of wrong doing Ensure that no s can be deleted relating to an anticipated or actual litigation case Human Resources Human Resource managers face many specific challenges from the use of within organisations. Typically these challenges are around the retention of employee information and being able to quickly investigate any allegations of misconduct. Archive solutions allow HR Managers to: Carry out formal investigations with IT involvement and quickly discount any false allegations of misconduct Comply with mandatory employee record retention periods Understand the full context and business situation in relation to employment tribunals Facilitate the monitoring of communications to reduce the risk of workplace harassment IT The IT department is most obviously affected by the ever growing volumes of usage and data retention with businesses. systems have limited ability to store the large volumes of data in use today and an Archive solution helps the IT department: Reduce overall storage volumes and the cost of storage Simplify backup and most importantly the restoration of Overcome mailbox quotas and remove local stores which are hard to search and which lock knowledge on users PCs Meet EU Data Protection rules over unauthorised access to data held in backup tapes Finance & Legal Electronic information is increasingly admissible in courts of law. The evidential weight such information carries is based on the integrity of that data. A tamper-proof journal archive improves opportunity for to be used either fully as a defensive or offensive weapon, depending upon your point of view. For the Finance and Legal teams such a solution provides the following benefits: Reduce the potential costs of legal fees, fines and reputation damage as a result of insufficient data management processes Track and record all contracts, NDAs, purchase orders and ad-hoc commitments which may legally obligate the company and provide evidence to resolve contract disputes Monitor and deter possible workplace harassment and any criminal activity being performed on business premises Track and validate the business Intellectual Property Cobweb Solutions Limited, 2007 Page 2

5 Overcoming Your Management Challenges Sales & Customer Service For sales teams Archive solutions help keep track of all electronic communication with customers. Specific benefits include: Quick access to historic communications with customers and prospects Tracking of ad-hoc commitments and obligations Allows Sales Managers to review correspondence for the purpose of training and quality control Rapid resolution of any customer service query or dispute Information Workers For Information Workers a centralised Archival solution provides easier access to information on which to make better decisions. Search and find information stored in attachments within archived s Make decisions based on the complete history of interaction with colleagues, customers and suppliers Access historic company information trapped in Cobweb Solutions Limited, 2007 Page 3

6 Managed Archival Service Selecting an Archival Solution Once the decision has been made to implement an Archival solution the next step is to decide which solution is right for your business. The selection of a solution for your business must address the 4 key areas of challenge identified. Compliance To meet industry regulation, UK & EU Data Protection and other data retention legislation requires a solution which ensures that all s sent and received are stored within a tamper proof archive. Only a tamper proof Archive Store provides the appropriate guarantee and evidential weight to . With such a store it can be proved whether or not an was ever sent. Business Efficiency The way in which is used in businesses today with data often stored on local hard disks prevents easy access to and the sharing of knowledge across all employees. The Archival solution selected should closely integrate with the business solution to overcome mailbox quotas, enabling all to be stored centrally. Such a solution unlocks customer knowledge held in users mailboxes and allows easier cross company information sharing. A centralised Archive Store which can be replicated offsite also offers improved Business Continuity options. Technical systems were not conceived to store large quantities of information. Consequently storing information within the system is often very expensive. Archive solutions utilise significantly lower cost storage solutions. The selected solution should closely integrate with the system to allow a reduction in data volumes within the system, yet still provide a centralised store which reduces the overall cost of storage and provides comprehensive auditable search capability. With reduced quantities in the system all administrative tasks are simplified, particularly backups. The selected Archival solution should also allow individual user restore of data to eliminate the need for mailbox restores. Legal Protection Whilst is a vital business communication tool it can also be used for inappropriate purposes. Implementing a Journal Archive based solution allows businesses to monitor and deter workplace harassment, and provide the ability to quickly deal with any allegation of wrong doing via . A definitive record of all communication with customers provides visibility of formal and nonformal contractual obligations and can help quickly resolve any customer service enquiries. An archive with a tamper proof archive store can also provide a record of creation for Intellectual Property. Cobweb Solutions Limited, 2007 Page 4

7 Overcoming Your Management Challenges Benefits of Outsourced Integrated Business Services When selecting how to implement an Archival solution you have the option to choose to deliver the solution in-house or via an outsourced provider. The benefits of outsourcing your Archival to a Managed Services provider are many, particularly if selecting a service which is tightly integrated with the underlying system. Scalability It is the responsibility of the provider of an outsourced Archival service to scale the solution to meet the needs of your business both today and tomorrow. Architecting an in-house solution that will support the future growth of your business and your business usage is a complex and potentially very expensive solution, with large upfront costs. An outsourced Archival solution provides a scalable solution which will grow with your business and which offers predictable monthly costs. Time to Deploy Once you have made the decision to deploy an Archival service internal resources may not immediately be available to identify and implement a solution, meaning the business continues to be at increased risk, and incurring higher costs for management than necessary. Selecting an outsourced Archive service will enable your business to quickly implement a solution which starts to protect your business and reduce your costs. Integration Two of the biggest benefits of an Archival solution are the reduction in costs for storing large volumes of and the provision of a centralised solution which unlocks the corporate knowledge locked in . Many outsourced Archival services do not provide close integration with your existing system. It is critical that you select a solution which provides a fully integrated solution that includes the underlying system. Without such a solution many of the operational and knowledge management benefits of the Archival solution will be lost. Data Security Outsourcing your services can be seen as a security risk to your business and a potential driver to keep your Archive solution in-house. When evaluating the outsourced provision of an Archival solution you must ensure that any provider selected has strong security policies. Accreditations such as the ISO27001 Information Security Management international standard provide peace of mind in the way your data is stored, controlled and managed. Business Continuity is the communication life blood of most businesses and so your Archival solution must be reliable and provide for Business Continuity protection. Deploying a robust multi-site Archive solution in-house is a very expensive option, requiring a high degree of skill to manage and operate. If selecting a service provider for the delivery of your Archive service you should ensure that they are able to replicate your data across multiple sites and deploy enterprise class architecture with no single point of failure. Cobweb Solutions Limited, 2007 Page 5

8 Managed Archival Service Managed Archival In response to these challenges Cobweb has joined forces with ZANTAZ, the global leader in information and retention and discovery management solutions, to provide a Managed Archival service. Both Cobweb and ZANTAZ believe that the key success criteria for the successful deployment of an Archival solution are the cost of storage per GB, automation and low touch archive management, fast retrieval of data and most importantly from a user adoption perspective, that users are able to interact with archived without any noticeable difference from how they can interact with non-archived . For ZANTAZ, who prides itself on being the global leader in Information Retention and Discovery Management (IRDM) solutions, Cobweb was seen as the obvious leading Managed Service Provider to partner with to expand our market reach beyond the Enterprise space. Cobweb's Managed Archival service provides affordable "on demand" access for Small and Medium businesses to ZANTAZ's archiving solution. Steve Reny, VP of Corporate Development Cobweb s Managed Archival service offers a secure and scalable solution that reduces storage costs and helps manage business risk by providing a secure long-term Archive storage solution which enhances knowledge management and employee productivity. The service is fully integrated with Cobweb s Managed Business service based on Microsoft Exchange. Users of the Managed Business service require little or no training to use the Managed Archival service as all s stay within the Exchange mailbox providing a seamless user experience. Journal Archiving Journal Archiving takes a copy of every sent and received through your company domain names at the time each is sent or received. Cobweb s Managed Archival service utilises Envelope journaling which ensures that all recipients of an are recorded, including BCC and fully expanded Distribution List members. Copies of all s sent and received are placed into the tamper proof Archive Store in real-time, providing an Archive which provides a compliant repository to meet industry regulation, corporate governance and government legislation. An Archive Retention Policy is available with this method of archiving that specifies how long each must and will stay in the archive. Once the specified retention period has expired on an it is deleted from the archive. Storage Management Cobweb s Managed Archival service provides seamless integration between the Archive Store and Exchange mailbox. Customer definable Mailbox Archive Policies are used to determine when each within a user s mailbox should be archived. When an is archived the service places a copy of the in the Archive Store, if it isn t already there, and replaces the original with a stub in the user s mailbox. The stubs contain a plain text copy of the original with all attachments stripped out and are typically less than 10k in size. Storage savings of up to 60% within the mailbox are often achieved as a result. Archive Searching Individual users are able to search through their own s within the Archive Store, including attachments. The access permissions present within the Exchange mailbox are maintained for user level searches. This means that if you have permission to see a colleague s Calendar the results from a search would include any matching content in that Calendar as well content in your own mailbox. Nominated Archive Administrators are allowed to perform audited Cross-Archive searches when investigations involving the company s are required. Cobweb Solutions Limited, 2007 Page 6

9 Overcoming Your Management Challenges Security & Reliability by Design The Managed Business service has been designed with data security and reliability as the first priorities. The high level solution architecture is illustrated below, including the integration with Cobweb s Managed Business service. The processes used in the management and delivery of the Managed Archival service are fully compliant with Cobweb s ISO27001 accreditation, assuring our customers that the security and privacy of their data is guaranteed. Seamless Retrieval The service provides an Outlook plug-in which means that a single click is all that is required to retrieve the original from the Archive Store. This plug-in includes an Offline Archive Cache, similar in concept to Cached Exchange Mode in Outlook 2003 that provides almost instantaneous retrieval when opening a stubbed . Outlook Web Access is also updated so that users can view the contents of the stub in the preview pane. As in the full Outlook client when a stubbed is opened, the original content is pulled from the archive. Archive Access Options Access to the Archive is through the same clients used for Cobweb s Managed Business service. This means that secure access over the internet is provided for users to gain access to their regardless of time or location. The supported access methods are: Cobweb Solutions Limited, 2007 Page 7

10 Managed Archival Service Microsoft Office Outlook The full text of the is available through the archive stub which can be seen in the Preview Pane within Outlook. An Outlook plug-in is required to allow the retrieval of the original from the Archive Store and for it to be displayed in a standard message window. Outlook Web Access By default the archive stubs are displayed in the Outlook Web Access (OWA) Preview Pane. The OWA interface is updated for Managed Archival service users so that when an archived message is opened the original message content is pulled from the Archive Store and displayed in a standard OWA message window. Outlook Mobile Access As the full original text of the is left in the archive stub OMA users still have access to the full text of all s within their mailbox. Windows Mobile Devices Windows Mobile device users are able to see the full text of the s within Pocket Outlook. The archive stubs are synchronised with the mobile device via ActiveSync in the normal manner. BlackBerry Enterprise Devices BlackBerry users are able to see the full text of the stub left in their Exchange mailbox via the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Cobweb Solutions Limited, 2007 Page 8

11 Purchasing Managed Archival Overcoming Your Management Challenges There are two core service options with the Managed Archival service, both of which use common Archive Storage. Extended Mailbox This service allows organisations to purchase and store an unlimited amount of data in the Archive Store. A standard Mailbox Archive Policy is provided with the service, which determines when messages are archived and stubbed. Only s in the mailbox at the time the Mailbox Archive Policy criteria is met will be archived. This service can be enabled for just the mailboxes on the Managed Business service requiring unlimited low cost, long term storage. An optional extra for this service is Cross Archive Search, which provides nominated Archive Administrators the capability to perform auditable searches across the entire Archive Store. Journal Mailbox This service level offers the necessary functionality where industry, commercial or regulatory requirements dictate the long term retention of s, by ensuring a copy of all s sent and received by an organisation are stored in a tamper proof archive for a specified period of time. The storage management benefits provided by the Extended Mailbox service are included as standard in the Journal Mailbox service. By default one named Cross Archive Search Administrator is configurable with the Journal Mailbox service. Additional Administrators can be setup as required. The Journal Mailbox service must be enabled for all mailboxes within an organisation on the Managed Business service. Archive Storage Storage for the Archive Store is sold in 1GB blocks. For the Journal Mailbox service additional storage is automatically purchased as required. Related Services Cobweb offers a comprehensive range of business class managed services. More information on these services can be found on the Cobweb website. Managed Business Managed Direct Push Managed Enterprise BlackBerry Cobweb Solutions Limited, 2007 Page 9

12 Managed Archival Service About Cobweb Solutions With over 3,000 Managed Business customers Cobweb Solutions is Europe s leading provider of Hosted Microsoft Exchange services, and has been delivering these services for 6 years. Since its launch as a business-to-business ISP in 1996 Cobweb has delivered business critical IT services to its customers. As businesses change the way in which they purchase and use IT Cobweb is expanding its portfolio of Managed Data Services to deliver the solutions our customers want. The first priority in the delivery of all our services is the security of our customers data, whilst still allowing anytime, anywhere access to enable a work is an activity, not a location workforce. Cobweb s company values are focused on delivering excellence in everything that we do, and this dedication has been recognised internationally: Microsoft: EMEA Hosting Service Provider of the Year 2004 Microsoft: Best Small Business Solution in Western Europe 2002 ISPA Awards: Best Application Service 2002 Cobweb continues to focus on ensuring the excellence of its service delivery and since 2004 has embarked on a series of industry best practice certification programmes to provide our customers with further reassurance of our capabilities: ISO9001:2000 Quality Management (Passed 1st time Sept 04) ISO27001 Information Security Management (Passed 1st time Mar 06) ISO20000 IT Service Management (Assessment planned 2008) Our extremely close relationship with Microsoft is critical to the successful delivery of our services. As a member of Microsoft s Early Technology Adoption Programmes you can be assured that we are at the leading edge in understanding how to best deliver Hosted Microsoft Exchange services, both now and in the future. Our excellent relationship with the Microsoft Exchange Product Group helped enable us to launch our Microsoft Hosted Exchange 2003 service on the same day that Microsoft launched the product globally, October 21 st We plan to repeat this when Microsoft introduces Exchange 2007 in early Cobweb is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with 4 competencies demonstrating the breadth and depth of our Microsoft expertise and skills. Cobweb Solutions Limited, 2007 Page 10